


Maybe I Missed You

by Cobrilee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banter, Canon AU after 3A, Canon-Typical Violence, Confident Derek, Flirtatious Derek, Future Fic, M/M, Magic Stiles, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-13 23:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobrilee/pseuds/Cobrilee
Summary: Five years after senior year ends, Stiles comes back to Beacon Hills with a lot of magic, a lot of confidence, and a strong determination to woo Derek Hale. Imagine his surprise when Derek apparently has an equally strong determination to woo Stiles. Or annoy the shit out of him. Either way, Stiles is completely on board.





	Maybe I Missed You

**Author's Note:**

> For bittensweetwolf for the Sterek Glompfest! The prompt was: "Stiles returns to BH after years of training his magic. Derek can't control himself any longer." I modified it a little bit to give Derek more control, but hopefully his very obvious intentions fit in line with the prompt!
> 
> Thank you as always to my amazing betas and cheerleaders, [rhysiana](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/) and [mad-madam-m](https://mad-madam-m.tumblr.com/). I love you ladies bunches and appreciate you so, so much!

The first time Stiles sees Derek Hale in nearly five years, he’s on his hands and knees at the edge of the lake, covered primarily with a layer of slimy blue goo and secondarily with a layer of fine, gritty brown beach sand. Derek glares up at him irritably, but Stiles can’t be too upset about it. It  _ was _ the snap of his fingers that had popped the lake monster’s three heads like over-full zits, blowing Derek backward and rolling him across the bank of sand. Stiles can’t imagine that Derek would actually be pleased with his present condition, nor with Stiles’ role in turning him into a gooey, entrail-covered sandsicle.

“Take a shower, big guy,” he says with a wink and an upward curl at the edge of his lips. “Or we won’t let you join us for my welcome-home party.”

Derek snarls, and Stiles takes that as his cue to leave.

\-----

The second time Stiles sees Derek, it’s at said welcome-home party. Derek took a shower, much to Stiles’ relief--or to his dismay, he’s not quite sure. Derek has always been devastatingly gorgeous, but cleaned up, dressed up, and confidenced up--it’s a word, okay?--he’s a menace. Stiles can’t help it that his gaze is continuously drawn back to the tight black tee, the way the sleeves mold to his biceps, the way the dip of the collar shows off a mouth-watering thatch of chest hair. 

And Derek clearly knows it.

“Welcome home, Stiles,” he murmurs when they finally have an opportunity to be within earshot of each other. Or rather, when Derek has an opportunity to be within earshot of Stiles. Stiles doesn’t even have to be in the same zip code to be in earshot of Derek. 

“After this afternoon, I wouldn’t think you’d be so quick to say that,” Stiles shoots back easily, but Derek’s implacable gaze doesn’t break. “You’ve had five years of peace and quiet and Stiles-free shenanigans. Or, well, likely no shenanigans at all.”

Derek scoffs, rolling his eyes in the way that Stiles hadn’t realized he missed, not until right this second. “My life wasn’t that boring without you, Stiles. It’s not like I sat at home knitting every night.”

Stiles lights up. “Oh, but I bet you learned! You did, didn’t you? You would, you’re exactly the type.”

“The type who knits?” 

Stiles swears that’s amusement in Derek’s voice, so he barrels ahead. “Yes, the type who knits, but also the type who looks like he’d kill kittens but instead knits them little sweaters.”   


“Stiles. I do  _ not _ knit sweaters for kittens."

“Puppies, then.”

Even Derek, stoic Derek, can’t bite back a smile at that. It’s tiny, but Stiles smells victory. “I don’t knit sweaters for anybody, Stiles.” The smile shifts, becomes a little darker, a little more wicked. “I kept my hands busy in other ways.”

Hello, boner. “Thinking about me the whole time, right?”

Derek’s smile goes sharper, his eyes hot. “Maybe.” 

Stiles’ jaw drops, but before he can come up with a suitable response, Derek winks and slips past him, out the door.

“Damn it," Stiles swears, frustrated. "That was  _ not _ how this night was supposed to go.”

\-----

It doesn’t take Stiles long to fall back into some of his old routines, but there are a lot of new ones he has to create. When he left Beacon Hills to study magic with the witch who became an honorary pack member his senior year, to learn how to use his spark and build his skills, he’d barely been eighteen. Graduation was only three days behind him when he packed his suitcase and boarded the plane for Pennsylvania. He’d pouted a little; if he was off to study magic, clearly a train was the appropriate mode of transportation. Three days riding cross-country, however, was a no-go both in the comfort and financial departments, so he’d spent eight hours crammed into a metal tube breathing re-circulated air with the other sardines.

All that to say, he’s a damn adult now, and Beacon Hills was left behind when he was still a teenager. There are a lot of things he has to get used to doing differently than he remembers.

Getting used to living on his own is interesting. He’s been doing that for years, but in Philadelphia, thousands of miles away from his dad. Now that he’s back in Beacon Hills, he feels like he should move back into his old bedroom, but that wouldn’t be a wise move for anyone. Fortunately for him, his dad agrees, so he moves into a one-room cottage apartment in the backyard of the daughter of one of his dad’s former deputies. He remembers Jake bringing Rebecca into the station sometimes and she’d watch over Stiles as he colored at one of the empty desks in the back, so when he runs into her at the grocery store and mentions he’s back in town and looking for a place to stay, it’s not uncomfortable when she tells him she has a little cottage place on her property that he’s welcome to rent for a couple hundred bucks a month. 

Alyvia, the witch from Philly, has a friend who owns an occult bookstore that does the typical palm readings and selling crystals and stuff as a front, and does actual spellwork from the back rooms for the local cryptid population. It’s in Redding, so it’s a little bit of a drive, but Stiles enjoys letting his brain race freely during the hour-long commute every day, so it’s pretty much the perfect job. He works four days a week and practices his magic on his days off. It mostly involves fucking with people for his own entertainment, but those are just semantics.

So he has a place to live, and a job, and he’s a badass spark. Stiles feels pretty accomplished these days. 

Which means of course Derek Hale would be the one thing in his life not going according to plan.

Stiles expected that when he came back, one of two things would happen. Derek would be gone and he’d just have to deal with it, or he would still be around and it would be up to Stiles to charm Derek until he realized how amazing Stiles was and fell head-over-heels.

He did  _ not _ expect Derek to be the one doing the charming. 

It starts at the welcome-back party, but it doesn’t stop there. Stiles runs into him at the grocery store (he runs into a lot of people there, apparently), and Derek, as they’re getting ready to part ways, makes an offhand comment that Stiles should stay out of the frozen food aisles. Stiles thinks he knows the answer to the question, but before he can even ask “Why?”, Derek smiles, a slow, devastating thing that scrambles his brains, and strolls away.

Stiles is inordinately proud of himself for not chasing after him.

They run into each other at the swimming hole the following weekend, but that’s to be expected, since there was a whole big group thing and a chat thread and it was pretty much planned that everyone would go. Not that there’s many people left from before, so “everyone” is a small number, but still. Derek shows up with sunglasses and slick black swimming trunks with a stripe of violent green down the side, more muscles than Stiles has brains (which he has a lot of, Jackson, shut the fuck up), and that ever-present slow-wicked-sharp smile that liquefies Stiles’ knees and makes him wish for swim trunks with more room in the crotch

Contrary to what he imagined at the start of the summer, right before he moved home, he spends the afternoon avoiding Derek to the best of his ability. Derek’s confusing him, throwing him off-kilter, and he doesn’t like it. He’s grown and matured in the last few years; he decides he spends enough of his time at his day job running headlong into trouble, so in this area, he can choose caution.

Or he would, if Derek would  _ let _ him.

“Do I scare you, Stiles?” Derek murmurs, swimming up behind him, his knees brushing the backs of Stiles’ thighs. If it was possible to jump straight in the air from a floating position, Stiles would master it on the first try.

“Why would you think that?” he counters, voice low and breathless, but only--he adamantly reassures himself--because he’s trying to get his heart out of his throat and back into his chest. From being startled.

Derek leisurely circles him, floating, his eyes heavy-lidded with amusement while his bronzed shoulders glisten from the sun shimmering off the water droplets scattered across them. “You’ve spent the whole time we’ve been here making sure you’re on the opposite side of the water from me.”

“I didn’t come here to fawn all over you,” Stiles retorts, rolling his eyes. Derek smiles wider, his expression clearly telling Stiles he knows better. “Besides, I spent years as part of your pack, or adjacent to it. Why would you all of a sudden scare me now?”

He smirks, eyes flashing blue. “Because now you know you might actually be in danger of being eaten by the big bad wolf.” With that he swims away, his muscled arms stroking powerfully through the barely-rippling lake.

“That joke is more lame now than ever!” he yells across the water, and he grumbles when the sound of Derek’s laughter carries back to him.

\-----

Stiles is just tired enough of Derek’s insufferable behavior that he decides, fuck it, he’s going out and hooking up with the first attractive guy he sees. He brings Danny with him for moral support, but Danny fucks off with a hot blond three minutes inside the door to Jungle. 

So he dances with random guys, none of whom really spark anything for him. There are a couple of cute ones who seem like they might be interested in taking things beyond the dance floor, but Stiles simply thanks them and heads to the bar to get away.

Danny comes back after a while, smirking and satisfied, and Stiles doesn’t even bother to roll his eyes. Instead, he throws his arm around Danny’s shoulders and pulls him in, meaning to give him a quick bro hug, and Danny gives him a momentarily surprised look before it fades into something speculative. With a shrug, Danny slides one arm around Stiles’ waist and pulls him in in a different way.

It shocks him for an instant, but he decides to roll with it. He loops his arms around Danny’s neck and shifts his hips, trying not to jump in surprise when Danny’s hands find them and tighten. It’s awkward, though. For all the times high-school Stiles would have died for this, it doesn’t feel right. He can tell that Danny realizes it, too, because as soon as the song is over, they separate. 

“Thanks for the dance,” Danny yells over the music. “I’m gonna check out the rest of the floor.”

Stiles nods, not even bothering to hide his relief as Danny disappears into the sea of grinding, glistening bodies. He makes his way over to the bar and orders a shot, he doesn’t even care what kind, and downs it. It burns like fire going down and he does an admirable job of not coughing. Too much.

Strong hands find his hips from behind and Stiles is tired, and he’s about to brush the guy off when he feels a broad chest firm against his back. The breath stutters in his throat and he resolves to turn around and do his best to appear smooth and confident, when…

“I’ve got something else you could choke on, rather than cheap alcohol.”

The words are murmured directly into his ear and he makes a disgusted face. “You really think that slimy line is going to work on me... you asshole!”

Derek smirks at him as Stiles spins in the other man’s loose grip. “What are you doing here, Stiles?”

“Trying to find someone to take home and ride like a runaway train, Derek,” he scoffs. “Why the fuck else would I come to a place like Jungle?”

“Then why are you  _ still _ here?” Derek presses, his eyes oddly tense and narrowed. “Because from where I’m standing, most of the men you’ve danced with would have been more than happy to accommodate you.”

Stiles folds his arms across his chest, as much in self-protection as in irritation. “What, have you taken to stalking? Again?”

Derek ignores the taunt. “I also never thought I’d see you turn down Danny, considering how you always smelled of lust around him in high school.”

“You will never  _ not _ be creepy, will you?” Stiles remarks dryly, since he knows at this point nothing he could say will derail Derek from the point he’s trying to make.

“It makes me wonder,” he continues, and yep, Stiles is always right, “if there’s a reason that none of these guys are enough for you.”

Stiles lifts his chin, sniffing disdainfully. “I have  _ taste _ , Derek, and I’m not going to jump the first guy I see.” Never mind that that had been his exact plan, until he realized none of the men in the club had jet black hair, unearthly green eyes, and a beard so meticulously perfect that all other beards wept in its presence. 

Derek smiles,  _ again _ , that evil smile meant to torment Stiles’ dreams and keep him on the permanent edge of a hard-on. “If you say so. I thought maybe there was someone else you'd rather be here with.”

Glaring, Stiles tightens his arms over his chest. “You sure do think highly of yourself, don't you?” he gripes, and Derek's smile widens, his eyes bright and mischievous. 

“I never said I meant  _ me _ .”

Stiles’ jaw drops, but before he can marvel at how expertly Derek has just played him, the grip on his hip drops and Derek melts into the crowd behind him. His grin remains, dancing in Stiles’ vision, and he has a moment to compare Derek to a Cheshire cat before he realizes he's alone. Again. 

“Damn it, Derek!” he bitches under his breath, gesturing for another shot and immediately slamming it back. 

\-----

He doesn’t see Derek again for almost two weeks, until Lydia has a “pack night” at her house. There’s only a handful of them left, since everyone else’s vacations are over and they’re back to wherever they live now. The crowd at Lydia’s house consists of her, Allison, Danny, Ethan, Cora, Derek, and himself.

“Finally, we’re both someplace where you can’t run away from me,” Stiles snipes at Derek as he passes by him in the kitchen, swiping a bag of chips and a bowl of queso from the counter. 

“What was that?” Derek asks, all innocence, and Stiles makes a face at him.

“You’re the one with the werewolf hearing, asshole. You heard what I said.”

Derek smirks, propping one hip against the counter and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. He kind of looks like a fucking Gucci model or something and Stiles hates him for it almost as much as he hates himself for making plans to jerk off to it later. “I don’t run away from you,” he says, finally, and Stiles eyes him balefully. “Running away implies I fear what I’m running from.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Of course you’d never be scared of me.” Derek snorts in agreement. “Then why do you always leave whenever we’ve been talking for more than thirty seconds?”  _ Flirting _ , he amends silently.  _ When you’ve been flirting with me for more than thirty seconds _ .

“Damn it,” Lydia complains, stomping into the kitchen. “Derek, your useless sister forgot to bring the bags of ice like I asked her to.”

“You love me anyway!” Cora calls from the living room, and Stiles blinks. It will never not be weird to him that Cora and Lydia ended up together after Lydia went to Argentina for a student exchange program.

Lydia makes a face in the direction of the living room, but it only takes a second before it morphs into grudging fondness. “She’s right, I do,” she sighs; the sound is less fond and more weary. “Either way, we need ice.”

“I’ll go,” Derek volunteers, and Stiles’ eyes widen.

“No!” he protests. “We were having a conversation!”

Derek winks at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“See if I still want to speak to you when you are,” he grumbles.

Giving him a toothy grin, Derek counters with, “And that’s supposed to be a threat?”

“Just get the hell out of here already.” Stiles throws a chip at him, annoyed with himself for being childish but even more annoyed with Derek for continually taunting him.

Derek shrugs, lifting himself away from the counter and strolling toward the back door out of the kitchen. He pauses when he gets to it, hand on the knob, and turns back to Stiles consideringly. “Wolves know better than to spook their prey,” he says finally, and it takes Stiles a second to cycle back through the last couple minutes to their previous conversation. “We never run straight into something if being cautious gets us what we want in the end.”

“You see me as prey?” Stiles asks, dumbfounded, and Derek’s smile goes sly.

“Those big brown eyes always  _ have _ reminded me of a deer,” he explains, and escapes through the door before Stiles can reply.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME WITH THE BAMBI BULLSHIT?” he yells, knowing Derek will hear him loud and clear.

There’s laughter from the living room, and he swears he’s going to find new friends.

\-----

Two nights later, Stiles shows up at Derek’s house and knocks on the door as hard as he can. When it finally opens, he glares at Derek. “You’re coming with me. Now.”

Amused, Derek takes a sip from his coffee cup. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I need to drive to Redding and you’re going to drive with me, where you can’t run away. And in case I need backup.”

The mirthful glint in Derek’s eyes fades into something sharp and hard. “Backup for what?”

“I might have been asked to clean out a nest of Voquilas,” he says by way of explanation. “I should be good, but in the event that I’m not, it would help to have a werewolf in my back pocket.”

He’s a little surprised when Derek doesn’t even take the opportunity to give him one of those wicked smiles at his somewhat-unintentional innuendo. He chalks it up to the fact that Voquilas are actually nasty, vicious little assholes and Derek probably isn’t inclined toward levity at the moment. “Let me grab my things. I’ll be right out. Also, we’re taking the Camaro. I’m not driving to Redding in that death trap you call a vehicle.”

“The Jeep is my  _ baby _ ,” Stiles protests, but waits dutifully for Derek to grab his jacket, shoes, and wallet, before heading out to where the Camaro’s parked. He doesn’t say a word when Derek gestures to the passenger seat, instead sliding into the buttery leather which cradles his butt like a lover’s hands.

Probably not a good comparison to make when he’s riding in Derek’s vehicle, in hindsight.

The first part of the drive is surprisingly quiet, although Stiles supposes the surprising part is that  _ he’s _ the one who’s quiet, and that it isn’t awkward. Derek seems content to drive without even acknowledging his passenger, eyes laser-focused out the windshield while his left hand rests on top of the steering wheel, the picture of casual and relaxed. Stiles is content to sit, half-slouched with his thumbs flying over his phone, waiting for Derek to crack and start talking to him.

For a little while, anyway.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he says eventually, and he doesn’t look up, but he can still sense the shift in Derek’s body as he looks over.

“You realize I’m not coming with you, right?” Derek points out mildly. “I’m taking you to this fool’s errand.”

Stiles puffs up with indignation. “Hey! I’m damn good at what I do, okay? They called me because they know my skills and they think  _ I’m  _ the best choice to wipe this nest out. A little respect would be nice.”

“Down, boy.” There’s amusement in Derek’s tone, and it just serves to sour Stiles further.

“Really? Fucking dog jokes? After you spent two years riding my ass every time I so much as  _ hinted _ at the D word?”

Derek huffs, a barely-there puff of breath. “I wasn’t riding your ass about  _ that  _ D word.” The words are sly, rich with innuendo, and fuck it, Stiles is tired of this shit.

“You weren’t like this at all when I lived here before,” he retorts sharply. “You made it clear you would rather have strangled me--and  _ not _ in the sexy, breath-play way--than entertained the notion of having anything to do with me. What’s with all the flirting now? Why are you acting like you had to be restrained in my presence when we both know that was never the case?”

The interior of the car falls quiet again, and Stiles feels like they’ve been swallowed up by the depths of the night. They’re surrounded by pitch darkness on all sides, the highway empty save for the occasional oncoming car, the pavement lit only with the low-slung lights of the Camaro. It’s cozy, and welcoming, and intimate. Stiles is slightly terrified of it.

By the time Derek finally answers, Stiles has almost forgotten that he asked a question in the first place. “I’m doing it now because I couldn’t then,” he confesses softly. “You were only seventeen when I left. By the time I came back, you were on your way out of Beacon Hills. There was no point to me saying anything.”

Stiles shifts in his seat, taking in Derek’s classic Greek god profile. “Are you telling me you missed me?” he asks, skepticism heavy in his voice.

A small smile tugs at the corner of Derek’s mouth and he looks askance at Stiles. “Maybe.”

Stiles flops back into his seat, stunned. “Huh.”

“I didn’t think you were ever coming back. I thought you’d gotten the hell out of Beacon Hills and realized how much better the rest of the world is.” There’s a slight edge to the admission, and Stiles glances back over at Derek, marveling at the way his jaw has tightened and his eyes have gone stony. 

“So you had an opportunity to realize what you lost out on and when you had a chance at it again, you made sure to take it?” Stiles surmises.

Derek snorts. “You make it sound like you’re some kind of prize.”

“I am,” Stiles counters with a cocky wink, and Derek rolls his eyes. 

They fall back into silence after that, but it’s still a comfortable one, and Stiles likes having the chance to mull over this new revelation and what it means for them going forward. Specifically, is it too soon to jump Derek’s werewolf bones? 

\-----

They pull up to a large, sprawling farm with run-down buildings and rusty, weed-covered equipment. Derek cuts his lights before making the turnoff and they make their way slowly down the meandering driveway. The engine is barely at a purr; the crunch of gravel under the tires is louder than the vehicle itself. Still, Stiles holds his breath as they ease to a stop in front of the dilapidated farmhouse, his heart racing when Derek turns the key in the ignition and they’re surrounded only by the soft sounds of nature at midnight.

“Ezrik said they’ve been making trouble on nearby farms, and this is the only place they’ve managed to track them back to,” he murmurs to Derek, fists clenched tight. “There’s five that they know of, but probably more. Voquilas travel in larger numbers.”

Derek splays his hands out, flicking them so that his claws snick out, and Stiles can’t help the snorting laugh that bursts out of him. “What?” Derek hisses, scowling.

“You are so fucking melodramatic,” he teases. “You don’t have to impress me, big guy. I kind of bought into the ‘huh, teeth and claws do it for me’ idea  _ years _ ago.”

Derek blinks at him, but Stiles ignores it in favor of easing his door open. He’s not sure why he’s making so much of an effort to be quiet; Voquilas are vicious little bastards that will protect their territory at all costs. It won’t take long for them to become aware of his and Derek’s presence, and then they’ll swarm.

Which, he supposes, answers his own question. Holding off on the swarming is kind of the ideal outcome.

When he circles the front of the Camaro, Derek is already there, edging slightly into Stiles’ space. It annoys him when he realizes that Derek is subtly trying to protect him. “Listen, Wolf Boy, I get that you come equipped with the teeth and the fangs. But I’m the one with the magic. Let me do what I was paid to do, okay?”

Derek backs off, the reluctance obvious on his face. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Stiles scoffs. “Please. I haven’t gotten hurt since senior year. Also, that time I accidentally lit myself on fire, but I blame that on Alyvia because she neglected to mention some very key instructions before letting me loose with that incendiary spell.”

He creeps forward, his hands loose at his side, fingers twitching, and he’s relieved when Derek steps in behind him. He can feel the ghost of a hand brushing his lower back, something instinctively protective, and he feels warm with affection. 

Which will have to wait to be addressed, because the demonic Smurf-influenced gremlin cousins barreling at them out of the tractor and hay baler are slightly more important at the moment.

“On your left!” he hollers at Derek, jerking his arms up and letting blue fire spark at his fingertips. He doesn’t have time to bring the fireball to full size, so he launches it at the nearest blue-gray, wrinkly-leather-skinned abomination. The thing shrieks loud enough to break glass, which it does in the house behind them, based on the sound.

There are three more right behind it; one of them catches the edges of the flame that took out the first one. It shrieks, too, but at a decibel that doesn’t make his ears bleed. That one leaps at him and he has the presence of mind to flick out his dagger, impaling two feet of pure rage and hate and flinching back from its dying screams.

“Stiles!” Derek yells, and Stiles waves him off.

“I’m good, I’m good. Nothing a little bit of fire and iron won’t fix. And your claws. Those’ll work, too.” He hears a snarl and another scream, and turns just enough to see a Voquila impaled on each of Derek’s sets of claws. “Yeah, like that.”

Derek snorts at him and then alarm crosses his face, and Stiles whips back just in time to backhand one of the little demons as it goes for his stomach. The three rows of razor-sharp teeth miss their intended mark, but slash through his forearm with ease, and he swears. Loudly. “You little bastard, I’m going to eviscerate you for that!” He proceeds to do so, making a face of disgust at the slimy entrails that drip down his arms and onto his shoes. 

“You’re not riding home in my car covered in demon sludge,” Derek warns him, and Stiles shakes a goo-slicked arm at him in spite, snickering when Derek leaps to the side to avoid the flying bits of body parts.

He gets serious with the next onslaught, fending off one after another, keeping a close ear out for Derek’s side of the battle. They’re both keeping up, dispatching their attackers efficiently. It’s only when a small wave of Voquilas rush him from the abandoned barn to his right that he feels the first flicker of worry. 

He always thinks it’s ridiculous when movies or books describe things as happening in slow-motion, because really, no, time does not suddenly slow down or stand still in the face of danger. He would really like it if that were true, however, because it takes barely a second before the wall of Voquilas leap onto him, and he goes down fighting.

Stiles can hear Derek yelling his name, somewhere in the fuzzy, nebulous distance. All he can think about now is the pain, from thousands of claws and teeth (and no, he is most certainly not into the claws and teeth thing  _ now _ , thankyouverymuch). It’s not a pleasant thing. 

He draws on the main source of his spark, something he hasn’t had much call to do before, and he can feel it spiraling through him, warming him, filling every cell in his body with power and peace. Thrusting his arms out, he has the barest moment of recognition that he’s glowing a very bright blue, probably enough to light up the entire farm, before the sharp slice of razors fades away.

Stiles watches from somewhere above himself as the horde of demons flies away from him, exploding like airborne rockets. Their slimy innards spray everywhere and he flinches slightly when he realizes they were flying in the direction of the Camaro. “Um, since apparently the  _ outside _ of your car is fucked, can I ride inside it after all?”

He doesn’t get an answer in words, but the sensation of Derek lifting him off the ground and wrapping him in beautifully-muscled arms is answer enough. “Jesus, Stiles! Don’t ever pull that shit on me again!”

Instead of answering right away, Stiles decides to take advantage of his current position and snuggles into Derek’s chest, dropping his head so that his cheek presses to Derek’s throat. “I had it handled, okay? You haven’t seen me the last five years, but I actually have power and I know how to use it.”

“I saw,” Derek murmurs, letting one hand stroke up and down his back rhythmically. “But it still scared the shit out of me.”

He lifts his head, giving Derek a soft, understanding smile. “I understand being afraid, but I promise you I won’t put myself in a position where I’m actually in danger of getting hurt, okay? At least more than superficially.” He gestures at his arms, showing off the wounds which have already knitted back together, albeit still smeared with blood. “It takes a lot more than a bunch of ugly demons with bad attitudes and height handicaps to take me down.”

“Except they literally did,” Derek points out dryly, and Stiles shrugs.

“Not for long. Nothing can _keep_ me down.”

Derek smiles; at first it’s a shaky thing, but it slides into something wicked. “I’m pretty sure _ I  _ could.”

Stiles shivers. Apparently that’s the answer to his question about jumping Derek’s bones. The answer is no, it’s not too early. It’s long overdue. “What do you say we head someplace with a shower?” he suggests, letting his own mouth shift into a knowing smirk. “Then maybe we can make up for some lost time.”

Derek forgoes a verbal answer, unsurprisingly, and slides his mouth over Stiles’. Stiles opens under him, allowing Derek to tip his head up for better access, his eyes drifting shut at the feel of strong hands twisting through his hair and gripping the strands tightly. They sink into each other for a few moments, ignoring the stink of dead demons and the slime clinging to their clothes in favor of finally breaching the distance created by years of separation. 

When they finally pull apart, Derek’s chest heaves and he holds Stiles closer. “God, I missed you,” he breathes.

“No maybe about it, huh?” Stiles grins, but it’s more affectionate than cocky, and Derek leans back in to kiss it off his lips.

“No, there's no maybe about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Louis Tomlinson's [Miss You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inZzcTXYowY) and I highly recommend it (as well as every other song he's ever sung). 
> 
> Feel free to come say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://cobrilee.tumblr.com/)!


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